


Ice in your veins

by IcyStarlight



Series: Voltron Drabbles [4]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Elemental AU, Gen, M/M, Rated For Violence, Rated for cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 03:53:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7343704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IcyStarlight/pseuds/IcyStarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You may never be able to return to your first home, but you’ll freeze hell over before you let the world take your second one. </p>
<p>Elemental AU from tumblr user rhymentai</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ice in your veins

**Author's Note:**

> AN: All ideas about this au are inspired by tumblr user rhymentai. Thank u for this glorious au I love it.

You are told that the lions grant their paladins elemental abilities when the bond between pilot and lion is strong. This sounds so kick ass. You are also told that your lion’s element is water and that it can first be brought out by strong feelings of sadness. This is no longer kick ass. 

It’s not as if you’re unfamiliar with sadness – in fact it’s something you know all too well – but this you, the paladin you, doesn’t have time for sadness and it’s something you left in the past. 

Shiro can do cool things with his powers, so can Keith in and Pidge but you’ve only seen them use their powers a few times. You think your own powers are pretty cool too. You just loathe how you access them. Your room did not need another flooding incident after the four that have already happened and honestly sometimes you would rather not sleep at all. Why couldn’t you access this power with anything other than sadness, anything at all would have worked! But no, it had to be the one thing you hate most. Sadness made you weak. It was what got you hurt. It allowed others to hurt you. You’ve known this all your life and you are not about to let it back in just to get some cool powers over water. 

That doesn’t mean you can stop thinking about it. You see Shiro practice with Keith and Pidge trying to help then gain more control. Coran rambles on about past paladins and what they could do. Even Allura has a few stories to share. Hunk has been off trying to master his powers or at least better understand them so it’s not like there anyone around to understand your pain of being surrounded by all this power stuff. It’s not like you’re jealous of the others – no way ever, you, Lance McClain be jealous? As if – but that doesn’t stop you from walking out of the room every time it gets brought up. 

Things were fine before Coran had to go and open his stupid mouth. Honestly they were all fine, but now after this no one can shut up about these elemental powers. Keith even wants to start sparring with them. You don’t have anyone else to go to because everyone is so swept up in this. You hate to admit it but it makes you a little sad. No it doesn’t you don’t need the powers. Who cares anyways? You were perfectly awesome already without kick ass elemental powers! And maybe if you keep telling yourself that one day soon you’ll actually believe it. 

It just happens. You have zero control over it. Pidge gets a nasty hit to the back of their head and when red blends with brown you see blue. The hopeless situation aboard a Galra ship became a frozen storm that Shiro won’t describe to you later because you can’t remember.

That’s a lie though. You totally remember. You wish you could forget. Frozen spikes impaling robots and soldiers alike as you carried Pidge down the halls. You could see your own breath as frost ghosted across the ship and painted its newly haunted quiet in white. God Pidge looked so helpless as you stared empty down at their blank face. Later you would learn that your fingers burned into Pidge on their arms from the cold that ran through your body, the ice in your veins, the feeling you still can’t shake. You’re afraid to breath like Keith used to be when air would just turn to fire for him you can still see the ice on your breath. Everything feels cold, but at the same time you don’t even notice it.   
It takes three weeks of sleeping curled up next to Keith for you to feel sort of normal again. Sometimes you can still feel the dance of ice across your fingers and see the haunting white in your dreams. You try not to think about it. 

But you still think about it all the damm time and the ice has melted so all you have is water and the water is the sadness you can’t shake because Pidge has forgiven you thirty-five times – and it still doesn’t feel like enough. 

The water is easy. 

Flowing to the pounding of your heart in your ears you can take down a whole squad of enemies with a few flicks of the wrist. Your favorite thing to do is use it to entertain the children of various planets. Fuel it with the knowledge that half of these kids no longer have parents and half of them never even knew theirs. Make dragons dance and the stars move as snow becomes laughter and delight that makes it all a little more bearable. 

You dance around with it when you miss your family. You guide it through the ship and countless training bots when you can’t sleep. The first time you strike water with enough force through an enemy to kill them you can’t stop the fear and half of the planet freezes. It takes lance knocking you out to make it stop. 

You don’t leave your room for two weeks. Its frozen over and no matter how many heated blankets Pidge throws in from the vents it’ll never melt. You have never been more afraid of yourself then in these moments and oh god what if you hurt Keith or Pidge again or Hunk or Shiro or Allura or Coran. What if you kill someone? Why were the paladins ever gifted these powers? 

Numb becomes emptiness and it takes Keith giving you second degree burns to realize you were freezing yourself. 

Maybe you wish he hadn’t come to check on you. 

Maybe you hate him for it for a while. 

You don’t know what to think anymore. 

Allura comes into the common room to watch you for a while so Shiro can go stop Keith’s own mental breakdown because that’s the last thing this crew needs right now, another mental breakdown.

Another burden.

Allura grabs your hand and sings.

You can’t even hear the words but you can feel the vibrations through the death grip she has on your hand. The melody is a calming one as the ice recedes from your heart. Maybe its English or some language you don’t know but she’s singing about flowers. You fall asleep and dream of the sea. For the first time since you got these powers you aren’t sad or afraid. 

Coran decides its time you went off on your own. To train and master your powers once and for all. He doesn’t want you to go just as much as everyone else, but he knows it’s the only way. Keith makes you a metal necklace. Its fashioned like a choker and you know he melted it himself with Hunk’s help to shape it. 

They send you off with hugs and Keith says if you don’t contact them again by the end of next week he’s coming to get you. Hunk cooks enough food to bring with if you also head another ten people coming with. Pidge gives you some cool tech to help you keep track of time and weather patterns alongside air and water comparability to earth’s. Shiro merely hugs you for five minutes and then lets Allura do the same. As well as everyone else. The mice included. 

The place Coran sends you is like almost all water. There’s one island of land and you feel a lot like self-banished Jedi. Its cloudy but Pidge’s device doesn’t pick up on any inbound rain. So you land your lion on the shore and set off towards the lone mountain here. Fog rolls around the path and you’re already losing your mind because your little sis just ran by. You could hear her laugh. What. The. Fuck. 

Okay deep breath and you’re under water. But at the same time you’re not? You can breathe down here. If you weren’t currently a million lightyears from home, you would think it weirder than you currently do. It is still a little odd to consider this normal so you just keep swimming. Following a glowing blue light, you just noticed into the depths. Everything is calm and peaceful. It feels like yet another home, but different from the ones you already have. This one, the third, is the water itself. 

You wake up on the beach when its nighttime. The stars above are the last thing you process before something hits you hard in the back of the head and you know only darkness.

Things fade in and out of focus but you awake in a prison. They call you a weird being who bares resemblance to the champion. You realize they’re talking about Shiro. They don’t recognize you and must have not seen your lion. Your bayard was in there dammit. So was all your shit. Fuck.

The arena is just as horrible as Shiro described it and you have nothing to defend yourself with. So you protect your home. You’ll have to make it back there one day and to do that you have to survive. You coat your hands in ice and beat every enemy they throw at you. The empire loves it and Zarkon comes to pay you a personal visit. 

He wants to know how you do it. How could puny flesh and bones kill his fiercest fighters with nothing? The druids aren’t with him but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t hurt you. Oh god you should’ve known not to draw attention to yourself. There are twenty-four marks on your cell wall for each day you’re here. At least there was till Zarkon came. 

He breaks your left arm as if it was uncooked spaghetti. You can feel the blood flowing out of you and it needs to stop or you’ll never make it. The ice seeps from your bones and dances across your veins. No, no, no! Not again. You couldn’t control it. No. Please god no. Zarkon asks if you’re afraid yet and you realize you’re more afraid of not making it than losing control. The dam bursts.

But nothing happens. Oh god nothing happens. Why can’t you do anything? Why were you frozen without even thinking about ice? Zarkon leans down and tells you that the champion nor the red paladin can save you now. The dam had already burst so why were you still here?

You’re gone from the ship and the sounds of bones breaking, the blood pounding, the world fading becomes Shiro screaming. You will later learn you traveled eighteen systems as pure water to come to Shiro who was searching for you on a water inhabited planet because Coran had only known to look for water if he was missing. He tells you that help is on the way and to just hang on a little longer. But you can feel the ice taking hold. The last thing you process is Keith. Brilliant flames burning and the feeling of being home. 

The next time you fight is too soon. You’re not confident at all in your new abilities and can still feel the frost in your left arms. But you no longer had time to feel out of your league. Who thought that they could challenge and take down an entire empire? 

One of the sentries’ stabs Keith in the side. 

Correction it fucking tries but water is everywhere and it’s raining sentry pieces before you even blink. The opposing force halts at the display of power but soon unleash a volley of laser rounds. Let them fire all they wanted, nothing could save them now. 

The nearest guy makes a charge at Keith who is still recovering from almost getting stabbed and the soldier freezes but there’s no ice in sight. Yet numbers currently out way your experience and a wave of exhaustion passes over you. You lose consciousness for three seconds max but that’s enough for someone to come at you. Enough for Keith to shield you with his own body. Enough for warm water to drip on your face, but this world is a desert and red becomes blue yet again.

You walk through a battlefield frozen in time. Keith breathes in and out with each step you take. It only takes the amount of effort you put into blinking to keep him from bleeding out in your arms. You have maybe only killed fifty enemies. But lifeless bodies stand frozen watching you walk through the wake of a storm. Back at your first home they name storms after people. 

You’ll never be able to do it again. Not to more than a handful of people. But in that one moment the lightning struck and a spark ignited. You may never be able to return to your first home, but you’ll freeze hell over before you let the world take your second one.

**Author's Note:**

> AN: Expect one for Keith and maybe one for each paladin if I have the time bc I'm a slut for angst.


End file.
